Junior Doctors Contract Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Masham of Ilton
Main Page: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Masham of Ilton's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(8 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am delighted to do that, having been the chairman of an NHS trust for 12 years myself and knowing that my noble friend was chairman of the Imperial NHS trust and that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is opposite, was chairman of the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust. Given the pressure and stresses on management and the complexity of its day-to-day role, I think that no other organisation is as challenging as a large acute hospital. Managers have to do their work in the full glare of publicity as well and it is extremely difficult, so I certainly join my noble friend in paying tribute to the extraordinary work that many of them do in the NHS.
My Lords, the Statement says that the Government’s ambition is,
“to make NHS care the safest and highest quality in the world”.
How is this to be achieved without enough high-quality doctors? Do the Government agree that, regarding the teams—the therapists and nurses, as well as the doctors—we need hard-working but contented staff?
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that the biggest asset in the NHS is the people who work in it. That is not just doctors and nurses but therapists, allied health professionals and all those people such as porters, caterers and the like. We have an extraordinary workforce, which, sadly, we often take for granted. I am always struck by the results of the NHS staff survey, which are nothing like as good as one would expect to see in many other businesses, so I agree entirely with the noble Baroness.